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April 18, 2011

G15: Red Sox 9, Blue Jays 1

Matsuzaka (7-1-0-1-3, 89) followed perhaps the worst outing of his career with one of his very best. He allowed only two base runners, a single with two outs in the first and a walk with two outs in the second. In each case, the next batter ended the inning.

And Jed Lowrie continued his recent assault on American League pitchers, going 4-for-5, with three singles, a home run, two runs scored, and four RBI. It was the second four-hit game of his career. Over his last seven games (10 days), Lowrie is batting .625 (15-for-24) and slugging .958.

Going down the box score:

J.D. Drew: triple, single, walk, run

Dustin Pedroia: single, two walks, run

Adrian Gonzalez: double, run

Kevin Youkilis: double, home run, two RBI, two runs

David Ortiz: single, two walks, run

Carl Crawford: double, RBI

Jacoby Ellsbury: home run (#4)

Matsuzaka had thrown only 89 pitches through seven innings and had mowed down the last 16 Jays (on only 54 pitches), but Francona went to the pen anyway. Alfredo Aceves kept the ball in the infield in a perfect eighth and Tim Wakefield gave up a one-out home run to Yunel Escobar that barely cleared the Wall (it actually hit a fan's glove, but looked like it would have landed over the line).

The Red Sox head to Oakland tonight with a 5-10 record, 4.5 GB the idle Yankees -- and only 1.5 games out of second place in the East.

Dice was cringingly bad in his last start, allowing eight hits, two walks and seven runs in 2+ innings (47 pitches). It was his shortest outing and fewest pitches thrown since April 14, 2009.

Terry Francona:

[W]hen we got into the second, everything went to the middle of the plate. ... seven balls hit right on the barrel. We love when guys throw strikes, but there were some balls that were middle-middle for the first seven hitters.

As Matsuzaka made the lonely walk back to the Fenway dugout after being yanked in the third, he was loudly booed.

Nobody really wants to be booed by the fans. The only way I can change this is to show good results in front of them. ... I watched a video after the game and I noticed a clear difference between when I pitch well and bad. There's something to fix.

Dice gets a chance to redeem himself (somewhat) in the annual Patriots Day game, as the Red Sox hope to take three of four from Toronto before heading west to Oakland.

Romero (1.66 ERA) threw a complete game last Tuesday in a 3-2 loss to Seattle. Romero has not allowed more than two earned runs in any of his three starts this year.

Just got back from taking L to the airport. She's in NYC this week. Glad the prices worked out to fly from Pearson, the local airport, because if I had to drive to Buffalo and back, I would have missed a fair amount of the game. (This is also a slightly different border crossing, so we're curious if she will be detained.)

"[Nix] is of early medieval English origin, and is a patronymic form of the surname derived from a short, pet form of the male personal name Nicholas. The ultimate origin of the given name is from the ancient Greek "Nikolaos", from "nikan", to conquer, and "laos", people;"

Now I wanna know what's the most different ways a guy has gotten on base in one game. It'd be sweet if you got a 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, HBP, reached on an E, reached on a FC, and got to first on a strikeout that gets past the catcher in one really long game. That is the true cycle.

Wow, so Harry Craft must have the most, all four hits, walk, and HBP. Or at least tied for the most with somebody who also got 6 but missed one of the hits. But even that would probably be harder than just a regular cycle.